Year 1

On Tuesday 23^rd April, Dr Mandy Hartley from The Little Story Telling Company came to visit year 1 to deliver an exciting workshop about rockets and planets. She started by showing the children a size comparison of all the planets and stars in our galaxy. The children were amazed to learn it would take 1100 years to travel once round the biggest star in the galaxy!

Next, the children split into planet teams to complete a series of tasks. They made a playdough planet to the size of the picture given to them by Dr Hartley, found how many moons each planet had and identified the time it took to orbit the sun. Some teams even had time to learn how many hours were in the day on their planet. Did you know? Jupiter has 67 moons!

We learnt new facts about the planets including the heat of each planet, if they are gas planets and if we can see planets from Earth! Have a look and see if you can spot Jupiter this evening!

We played Top Trumps with the planet facts, which linked beautifully to our English lessons last week where the children created their own Top Trumps about the planets in our solar system.

The children shared some facts they knew about the different planets:

“Mars is red” Stephen

“It is 365 days or 1 year to go round the sun on Earth” Rafe

The children used reasoning skills to work out which planets would be the quickest or slowest to orbit the sun.

“The smallest planet has less weight so will be the quickest to orbit the sun” Auralia.

“Neptune will take the longest as it is the furthest away” Renelle.

We finished the workshop with some rocket experiments outside. We used water and alka-seltzer tablets in a film canister to create a mini rocket launch. Dr Hartley explained that the rockets were using the force of thrust to go through the air.

“I enjoyed when the rockets went flying up in the sky” Harrison.

On Thursday 29^th February, as part of their new topic, ‘Our Planet and Beyond’, the children in year 1 were able to experience a mobile planetarium. A visual display of the night sky was brought to Toftwood Federation! The children crawled into the self-contained darkened classroom dome and were given a presentation about our solar system including facts about the sun, moon, and planets including our planet Earth. They then could lay back and experience stargazing, whilst also learning about the constellations in the sky. It certainly got the children excited for their up and coming topic and was a fantastic WOW moment for the children.

Jasper in CM1 said, ‘I wish I could do this at home and see the planets.’ Freddie in KD1 said, ‘My favourite part was when the lights went off and we could see the stars’. Lucy from Starlincs who did the presentation said, “Rafe you are a little space Einstein as you have shared so many facts with the class!”

Year 1 children were treated to a visit from Mr Bell from Weatherquest as part of the start of their Weather Experts topic this half term.

Mr Bell explained to the children that the scientific name for someone who forecasts the weather is a Meteorologist. He showed the children how he presents the local weather on BBC Look East and what the different images on the screen mean. He talked about how they show rain, the temperature and the wind speed.

Mr Bell then told the children about different types of extreme weather. He showed them some pictures from some of his storm chasing visits to the USA which the children were really interested about. They particularly loved seeing the videos of tornadoes and the size of some of the hailstones!

Mr Bell then talked to the children about the different instruments that are used to measure the weather. We learnt that a rain gauge measures the amount of rainfall, a thermometer measures the temperature and an anemometer measures the wind speed.

The children also had some interesting questions to ask Mr Bell;

Ava asked, ‘How many weather forecasts have you presented?’ and Rafe was intrigued to find the answer to his question “How do you know so much about the weather?”

The children really enjoyed the session and were engaged throughout (as well as the grown ups)!

This half term, the children have read the book ‘Dear Dinosaur’ in our English lessons. The children received videos and emails from adults that work behind the scenes in school, explaining what their job entails. The book which focuses on giving and receiving letters, inspired the children to write letters to their chosen member of staff. The children thought of questions that they would like to ask as well as introducing themselves. Here at Toftwood, we have amazing staff members who were kind enough to then write back to the children and responded to their questions.

On Monday 9^th October, the year 1 children were lucky enough to have a visit from Ian at Wycomb Mobile Petting Farm. Ian brought with him some familiar animals who came to school last year like Thumbelina the Shetland Pony, Marvin and Minnie the goats as well as sheep, guinea pigs and rabbits. There were also some new animals like Chocolate Buttons the poodle and a chicken!

This was all part of the children’s topic ‘Animal Life’ where the children have been learning about grouping and classifying animals as well as identifying their body parts. The children are also going to use this visit to write a recount in English too.

Jasper said, ‘It was the best day ever!’ Louie said, ‘My favourite animal was the black goat, Minnie!’

‘I wish the farm could come every day,’ Freddie said!

On the 19^th Sepetmber, the year 1 children were lucky enough to have a visit from the Healthy, Happy, Active (HHA) lead, Ellise from the West Norwich and Dereham Schools Sports Partnership.

Ellise talked the children about the changes that they have had to go through recently from their transition from Reception to Year 1. They also talked about were reminded of the ‘5 ways to wellbeing’ that we use within the federation.

1. Connect

2. Keep learning

3. Be active

4. Give

5. Take notice

The children also took part in some active games linked to the 5 ways to wellbeing.

The children in reception and year 2 will enjoy these workshops later in the year.