Year 1 & 2 Thursday 7th May

VE Day

Tomorrow is a bank holiday, (although that does seem a rather strange concept at the moment), and marks the 75th Anniversary of VE day. So, today we are sharing some resources on our page to help understand what this is all about.

The first slideshow, 'What is VE Day?', is a reading exercise that explains the celebrations that happened on this day 75 years ago. There are two pages to choose from, the second page giving a little more detail with slightly more complex questions. The majority of children would benefit from shared reading, lots of discussion and finding answers together, but if your child is very confident you could let them have a go independently.

The second slideshow, 'Children in WW2', takes a deeper look at what happened in WW2 and how it affected the lives of children, ie; rationing and evacuation. This is not intended for independent reading, but for sharing and to promote discussion if you want to delve further.

In school we would try to gain a deeper understanding of why VE Day was such a celebratory event, and why it is important that we mark and celebrate it today. You could also ask your children which of the Children's Rights might not have been met during war time. We definitely have some experts on this in our classes!

Following your reading and discussion there are a few related activities that you might like to have a go at;

Morse Code (final slideshow on our page today) - use the morse code alphabet to work out the messages, or write one of your own in morse code!

VE Day colouring here - colour this picture, or draw your own.

VE Day flag bunting template here - use this template, or draw and design your own. Take an A4 piece of paper and fold to find the middle of the long side as the point of your flag, divide to make 3 triangles as below;

VE Day spitfire template here - make and fly this aeroplane, or have a go at folding paper to make your own.

If you want to get the feel of a street part, there are several programmes to be found on social media, such as the one below. It is possible that I might be found in my front garden tomorrow at 4pm with my best china tea cup, enjoying tea and scones with my neighbours (at an appropriate distance of course).

If you want to make your experience even more authentic, then tune in to this radio station below to get the real sounds of a 1940's street party! 

Sumdog Party Friday

Thanks for the positive feedback following the shared Sumdog session earlier in the week. It seems we all had such a great time, so we would like to have another go tomorrow between 1pm and 2pm. We know it's a bank holiday but Mr Jude, Miss Langley and myself will be there and would love you to join us again!

You will need to log in to Sumdog - https://pages.sumdog.com/  (if you cannot find your login then email ks1@downhallprimary.com and your teacher will email it back to you). We will be playing:

1:00-1:20pm - Street Racer
1:20-1:40pm - Stepping Stones
1:40-2:00pm - Dance

We are all looking forward to this fun challenge!

National Sumdog Competition

We did so well in the Essex competition that we felt brave enough to enter into the national! The competition opens at 8am on Friday 8th May and closes at 8pm on Thursday 14th May. In order to qualify, each class needs at least 10 children to play and each child has a maximum of 1000 questions that will be counted. We've got this KS1, all we need to do is play and try our best!

Science Fix

A big thank you to everyone that showed us a taste of their fabulous work via email or on the PTA page. It is really lovely for us to see that what we are doing is useful, please keep sharing!
This week, if you are hungry for more science, you can choose another animal to find out about using the resources posted last week (apologies for the initial technical malfunction). You can draw further diagrams and build more fact pages for your collection. Remember to think about the different categories from last week;

• appearance - description using any technical words such as fin, tail, jaws, claws etc

• adaptations (bodily features that help them survive in their environment)

• size/ lifespan - how big/ small can they be, how long can they live

• diet - what do they prey on (eat), but also, what might eat them!

• any other unusual or interesting facts

If recording feels too much for you today, then treat this as a shared fact finding exercise and between you, jot down some basic facts for quiz question cards.  These can be returned to as and when you like to build up knowledge of the different animals.

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend, and please do remember that although there are always a lot of different tasks on this page, you are not expected to do them all unless you want to. Please pick and choose what will work for you on any given day, and remember that the previous tasks are all still accessible should you wish to return to any of them.

Take care and stay safe,
KS1 Team