​Beech Class have enjoyed the last few weeks especially with the added excitement of our trip to the Chagford Community and Memory Cafe, International Maths Day and Red Nose Day! 

Our Maths Day was a huge success, and the class enjoyed rotating around KS1 for their Maths learning in the morning. In Year 1, the children were inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's 'Colour Study: Squares with Concentric Circles', 1913. During the afternoon, we looked at Money through the lense of PSHE/Citizenship and the children thought carefully about different aspects of this topic such as where money comes from and the differences in 'what we need' and 'what we want'. 
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The trip to the Chagford Community and Memory Cafe will no doubt prove to be a highlight of this year. I would like to share part of an email from one of the organisers of the Cafe which sums up the event:

'Thank you so much for bringing your wonderful class to visit us at the Community and Memory Cafe yesterday.  Our guests and volunteers thoroughly enjoyed their visit.  We absolutely loved the songs and the way the children chatted so happily to the guests and brought so much fun and energy to the session.  They were beautifully polite and an absolute pleasure.  
Please convey our thanks to everyone in Beech class and to all your wonderful helpers. Your visit was a breath of fresh air at the cafe!'

Thank you for all your continued support,
Miss Lloyd

Photos of KS1 artwork for International Maths Day, inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's 'Colour Study: Squares with Concentric Circles', 1913.

This week has been packed with excitement and World Book Day on Thursday has topped the lot! The children were in an array of costumes - we had two Witches from Room with a Broom, Darth Vader, Icarus, a Golden Goose, two Batmans, Little Red Riding Hood, a Fox with a Star, a Panda, Jack in the Beanstalk, Willy Wonka, Saucepan Man and a plethora of Princesses! What a special day it was. The class enjoyed sharing many stories and making their own story books and bookmarks. Thank you for all your creativity and enthusiasm to make World Book Day such a memorable day. 
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Miss Lloyd

Beech Class have kept up their enthusiasm and readiness to learn as we head towards a well deserved half-term break. They have become experts in many of our topics such as in History, Explorers and Adventurers and the Seasons and Weather in Science. The class are all budding artists and their beautiful pictures of Charles Rennie Mackintosh roses are testament to this. 
Wishing you a very, very happy half term holiday.
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Warm wishes

Miss Lloyd

Beech Class have been extremely busy working hard in all areas of the curriculum. In the last couple of weeks, the children have enjoyed learning about Bessie Coleman, Neil Armstrong , Valentina Tereshkova and Ernest Shackleton as part of their History topic on Explorers and Adventurers. The story by Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found, proved to be a popular text and there has been some wonderful writing. Many of the children enjoyed practising their super speedy Maths skills by challenging themselves on NumBots - well done to you all! In Art, the class made beautiful collage Great Horned Owls as pictured below.
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Miss Lloyd 

Dear Friends and Families

Year 1 have returned after their half term break in high spirits and it's lovely to see them back ready to learn! There's always excitement to begin new topics and we hope you enjoy hearing about the children's learning over the coming weeks. A taste of some of our new topics includes... in Geography, we will be looking at 'Where I live' and in Science, 'Building Things' whilst in Computing, we will be using a range of tools for digital painting to create our own digital pictures, while gaining inspiration from different artists’ work including Henri Matisse and Piet Mondrian. The colourful paintings in the photo below have been designed by Year 1 and inspired by Autumn colours in the style of Orla Kiely prints. 
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We are all looking forward to this half term with Beech Class leading up to the big event!

Best wishes
Miss Lloyd

It’s been another wonderful week of learning in Beech Class!

In Maths, the children have been very busy comparing groups by matching, as well as exploring ‘fewer, more, the same’, and 'greater than, less than and equal to', in both pictorial and concrete contexts, and by using number lines and part whole models. In Phonics, everyone is enjoying the challenge of Set 3 Sounds and the new concept of 'special friends' who are so chatty, they have to be split apart! In English, the class have been intrigued by the adventures of a miscreant London bus in our Literacy Tree focus, 'Naughty Bus' by Jan and Jerry Oke. In Science, we've been finding materials that are transparent, translucent and opaque and in History, thinking about the differences in holidays by the seaside today compared with in the past. In Art, we've looked at the artist Bridget Riley and her wonderful use of the optical illusion. Beech Class have created their own Bridget Riley inspired miniatures. 
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Thank you for all your continued support with home learning especially by regularly reading with your child and by watching the virtual classroom videos. I know that many children are enjoying the Maths website, Numbots, which is really supporting their mathematical fluency, many thanks.

Miss Lloyd
 

​A warm welcome back to all the children and families after the summer break! Beech class are settling well into their new learning environment in Year 1 and have impressed us with how they are stepping up to the new daily routines. In Phonics we have been reviewing the Set 2 Sounds and, with much anticipation, we will begin the Set 3 Sounds next week! The children have enjoyed exploring the text 'Here We Are' by Oliver Jeffers and have considered carefully how we can look after ourselves and our world. In Maths, lots of counting, sorting and grouping has occupied everyone as well as looking at the concepts of greater than, less than and equal to. Our Woodland School sessions so far, have been blessed with beautiful weather and last week, the children enjoyed making creepy crawlies out of sticks and the like!
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Miss Lloyd

Hello, friends and families,

Can you believe it? Our year in Beech Class has come to an end! It is incredible to think of the many things that the children have learnt from developing phonic skills to enable super, independent reading, counting to 100 in different patterns, learning to add and subtract, always being curious, creative learners discovering our place in the world through Science, Geography, History and RE to name but a few. Above all, the children have worked as a team, cherishing each other's unique qualities and remembering our school values of Community, Challenge and Care. Beech Class have shared, taken turns, and helped each other every step of the way. We learned about kindness, respect, and how to solve problems together. We celebrated each other’s birthdays and special moments, making our classroom feel like a big, happy family and indeed, our wonderful day trip by train to Exmouth Beach felt like a big family day out! We were blessed with beautiful weather and a wonderful cohort of Mums and Grandad to help on our trip, thank you to you all. It was a very special day and a fitting way to celebrate the end of our academic year together.

I am so proud of everyone in Beech Class: thank you for your creativity, hard work and effort throughout this year. I wish you a wonderfully happy Summer holiday.
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Miss Lloyd

​Beech Class have had a terrific start to their final half term in Year 1. As well as the excitement of beginning new topics such as Oceans and Seas in Geography, and Living Things in Science, the highlight has undoubtedly been our trip to Stone Lane Gardens! In this beautiful and magical setting, Beech Class discovered more about trees and plants with the wonderful assistance of staff from the gardens and our amazing parent helpers. We could not have asked for better weather nor a more perfect setting. The children were full of curiosity and excitement embracing all the activities including leaf detection, a sensory scavenger hunt and drawing the sculptures that are currently in the gardens as part of a summer exhibition. A huge thank you to everyone who made this day so special for us including Miss Hazeldine who now works at Stone Lane Gardens!

Well done to all of the children in Beech Class for this Summer 1 term of fabulous learning, friendships and achievements.
Wishing you all a very happy half term.

​Miss Lloyd