Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 1st March 2024

 Happy Friday everybody! It has been a very busy beginning of the Spring Term in KS1 - we have been looking at non-fiction texts in finding out about people became knights in English as well as looking at the different countries that make up the United Kingdom in Geography. But now on to an exciting announcement!

Colchester Castle - Tuesday 19th March

As part of our new project, "The Quest," we will be visiting Colchester Castle! This is a great opportunity to provide a real life experience to underpin all our learning about castles and knights. We made the same trip 2 years ago and know that it is a valuable and highly enjoyable day for the children in Year 1 and 2. You will receive a Google Form via message and email with further details today.

Spelling Frame Homework

Today your child will bring home a log in for the website Spelling Frame. This can be accessed via the link below:

Spelling Frame

Click on login to access the site, entering the details you have received. From here click on your child's Year group and thus week we are looking at Spelling Rule 1. This is the /ai/ vowel digraph for Year 1's and the "soft g sound" for Year 2's.

From the options, you can select "play" to play a range of games to practise these spellings and click on "view words" to see a list of the words that are being tested. At the end of next week, we will be testing the children on these words in class.

This process is followed throughout Key Stage 2 in our school, so we wanted to make the children in Year 1 and 2 ready for this experience when they move up. It will also help their spelling and is great fun too!

World Book Day

Just a reminder that World Book Day is on Thursday 7th March. To promote reading within our school community, for this day the children can bring in a favourite book from home which they can share with the other children in their class.

They can also bring in a prop which serves as a clue to their favourite book/character or come dressed up as a favourite character too if they so wish. On this day all the children will also receive a £1 World Book Day voucher!

Maths Homework

This week, we would like you to look at pages 38 & 39.

For Year 1's this focuses on quarters. Again, it is helpful when discussing fractions to relate it closely to division. So when discussing finding quarter, relate it to the same as dividing it in 4. The game below explores how to recognise halves and quarters in shapes.

Halves and Quarters

For Year 2's this focuses on thirds and quarters. As usual, relate these mathematical concept back to the basic operations of maths - dividing by 3 or by 4. The game below explores finding quarters and three quarters by sharing.

Finding Quarters By Sharing

Don't forget to keep up all your fantastic efforts with your reading at home - it will make a huge impact on your child's reading development. Keep using the range of questions we have discussed previously as well!

If you have any issues or questions, please, please come and see us at the end of the day - we would love to see you!

Have a great weekend!

Kind regards

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Miss Smith