Churchill CofE Primary School
Term 1
Our topic for Term 1 is 'Fire! Fire!'
Useful information
Phonics Screening Check
The Year 1 phonics screening check has been postponed from June 2021 and will now take place after half term during term 2 (November 2021) Please have a read of the guide for parents/carers and encourage your child to practise their phonics by using the flashcard resources.
You may also want to try these written phonic activities.
Our Great Fire of London Day
Please enjoy looking at the slideshow of our fantastic day!
First thing, Jethro Knuckleskull from 1666 came to visit. He led us through the most amazing workshop and we all had a chance to join in with different parts of the 'story'.
After play, Mr Kingston-Lee came in to show us a virtual reality landscape of London in 1666 that he had created. We had a chance to wear the virtual reality headset and could see on the computer what each person was looking at.
This afternoon, we used the ipads to explore the Great Fire of London game (link below). Miss Pike has never seen us so quiet!
We also played a Great Fire of London board game and top trumps. For those who wanted a bit of quiet time, they could do a colouring sheet, thinking very carefully about appropriate colours to use.
A big thank you to the parents and grandparents for sourcing such wonderful costumes!
1666 Houses
We used our knowledge of the Great Fire of London to make our own houses.
Lots of different skills were used in the process. We drew carefully, measured accurately and cut out neatly. Thinking about our art skills, we really focussed on line, shape and colour, also learning a new skill of layering.
We are very proud of our work and think all the houses look very realistic.
House building in progress
The final results
Science - checking the suitability of materials.
We have been learning about the properties of materials in Science and this week we made predications and explored what we thought might happen if we made boats of different materials.
We discussed vocabulary such as 'waterproof' and 'absorbent'.
Painting in Art
We listened to the story of Wilberforce the Frog, who with his dad, painted different coloured and shaped stepping stones. We painted their stepping stones and then created some of our own, thinking about the visual elements of pattern and shape.
First 500 Reading Points Achieved
On Monday 4th October, Year 2 achieved their first 500 points for reading regularly at home. The children have voted for their treat............an extra golden time.
Well done everyone! Keep reading!
Well done Mrs Holdaway
Congratulations to our wonderful LSA Mrs Holdaway who took part in the Virtual London Marathon on Sunday. We celebrated her achievement during our class check in on Monday. The pain kicked in at about 17 miles but she kept going and persevered to complete the 26 mile challenge.
The Fire Starts!
Our class text 'The Great Fire of London' by Emma Adams and James Weston Lewis has been a huge focus for our learning this week. We have discovered how the fire started and have looked into how the people of London tried to put it out.
Poor Mr Bush tried very hard to put the fire out all by himself by running from the River Thames with a bucket of water over and over and over again! It just didn't work though.
Here's how we sorted the problem...
'Thomas Farriner' came into school today to talk to us about the fire in his bakery. We wrote some questions to ask him and made sure we had a question mark at the end of each one!
Here are some of our questions...
401 Challenge
House Activity Day
Thursday 30th September
Our first 401 challenge day was a huge success. The children really enjoyed being able to select their activities (from archery to cooking, through to arts & crafts and Frisbee golf) and loved having the opportunity to work together in different age groups. Our Christian Values and four key rules (Be respectful, ready, responsible and resilient – known as our acorns) were on show throughout the school. It was a fantastic day that brought the whole school together as a community and allowed us to focus on positive mental health, kindness and friendship. It was certainly a day to live Ben Smith’s tag line ‘find your happy’.
Using manipulatives to make representations of numbers
Our New Gazebo
We were all very excited when Mrs Woollven told us that we were going to do part of our RE lesson in the newly built gazebo. With 31 of us sitting comfortably on the bench, we listened carefully to the story of the Good Samaritan. We were thrilled that we were apparently the first class to use it!
A Truly Inspirational Visitor
On Monday 20th September, we were delighted to welcome Aaron Phipps, a member of the Tokyo 2020 gold winning Paralympic rugby team. Aaron led a whole school service where he shared his journey as a survivor of Meningitis C and becoming a Paralympian. He talked to the children about his experience of overcoming challenges and achieving his goals, sharing how this can be applied to all our lives. We were really grateful to the Government’s sports grant for funding Aaron's visit.
Afterwards, the children were lucky enough to see and hold his Olympic gold medal. Some were really surprised how big and heavy it was. Please enjoy looking at all our photographs.
Responding to the work of Wassily Kandinsky
We first thought about the shapes we wanted to use in our masterpieces. Thinking about the use of space too, we drew around shapes which were overlapped or drawn in isolation. Next, we added lines. Again thinking about space we drew different lines- long, short, straight, curved, thick and thin.
Finally, we used watercolour paints to add colour. We are impressed with the final results and think our skills of using watercolours have improved.
Shape, line and colour in Art
We have been looking at the artist Wassily Kandinsky, thinking about how he uses shape, line and colour in his works. We have discussed some of his paintings and we are going to recreate his style in our own work. We will be using watercolours, so this week we have been learning how to use them effectively, by painting some black and white templates.
In maths, we have been learning to tally. We have used straws, whiteboard pens and practised air writing. We made a tally chart to show our favourite colours.
History Detectives
In groups of three or four, the children were given maps of London from different times in history and were encouraged to be history detectives to find clues to be able to put the maps in order on a timeline.
There was a lot of discussion linked to colour vs black and white images as well as looking at the number of buildings north and south of the River Thames. Over the next few weeks in English and History, we will be looking at what London is like now and what it was like 300 years ago.
We have been responding to the work of Pablo Picasso and cubism.
We worked together to agree our class expectations.
Getting to know you activities!
We spent a number of sessions last week getting to know each other with games, quizzes and writing opportunities. The children also spent time getting to know the classroom and completed a treasure hunt to find out where classroom resources are stored.
Speaking and Listening
Making the most of the lovely weather, this is our first Year 2 check in.
Our favourite picture books.
Inspiring a love of reading.
