Stanningley Primary School

We had a fabulous time on our summer trip to St Leonard's Farm. The children behaved impeccably all day long. First the children enjoyed burning off energy in the play barn, then meeting and stroking all the animals introduced to us by Farmer James. Next it was time for lunch in the outside garden before exploring the hay barn, playgrounds and the rest of the farm animals. The children had a great trip and all the staff and volunteers complimented the children on their excellent behaviour and manners. They were a credit to everyone and this helped to make it a great day out!

We all had a fabulous time and gave 100% effort during our annual Race For Life event. We all helped to raise money for our chosen charities and then ran with pride. Some of our grown ups joined us for a final lap!!

In science we have been learning how to stay safe in the sun. We learnt about the strength of the suns rays when we stuck shapes onto large orange card and placed them in direct sunlight around school. We were shocked to see that the power of the sun's rays had faded the uncovered areas. We used this to think about why we

After weeks of watching the caterpillars grown, turn into chrysalis then hatch into butterflies, it was time to let them go. The children gathered in the playground to watch Simon, Summer, Steve and Benji (names given by the children) enjoy their life in the outside world. The butterflies were a little reluctant to leave us at first, but with a little patience and encouragement they flew off to explore the world around them.

As part of our science this half term, we have been learning about evergreen and deciduous trees. We learnt that we could identify the type of tree by looking at the shape and colour of the leaves. So, armed with our identification sheets, we set about naming and counting the trees in our school garden. When we had done this we went into the local park to look at the different types of trees in there.

This term in music we are learning all about playing in an ensemble. We have enjoyed playing ukuleles, glockenspiels, boob whackers and xylophones. We enjoyed playing the rhythm and the pulse with our instruments.

To celebrate all the hard work year 1 have put into their 'Naughty Bus' stories, the children shared them with the oldest children in the school. Year 6 were fabulous with the younger children and even helped them to 'purple pen' edit and improve their work. We even had some siblings come to join in from year 5!

The children have been working on a text called 'The Naughty Bus' by Jan Oke. We looked at the unique text of the book and the calligrams used by the author, which helped us understand the book further. The children wrote and retold their own version of the story, before creating their own 'naughty vehicle' who got into a lot of trouble around the classroom. The children are now using photos they took in their own book. They are looking fabulous and we can't wait to see the finished versions!

To conclude our science topic for this half term, the children all made their own mini beast hotels. They used all their learning from our hunts and research about the insects, to create the perfect habitat for insects. Now we need to wait to see if any insects chose their hotels as their habitats.

As the class reached the top of their treat board, they were owed a BIG treat. The children voted for a cinema afternoon - they all wore pyjamas and brought in snacks from home.

Year 1 enjoyed a lovely day at Rodley Nature Reserve. The children enjoyed exploring the wildlife - both plants and animals within the reserve before taking part in activities such as pond dipping, bird watching and map reading. The children behaved brilliantly and were a credit to the school. They asked lots of sensible questions and learnt a lot about the world around them.

We have been enjoying learning lots of new songs and we have enjoyed exploring pitch and rhythm with Mrs Rivers this term. The lessons are always fun and fast - we particularly enjoyed our outdoor drumming lesson in the sunshine!

This term we are revisiting our science topic of animals. We are focusing on the different needs of animals and the habitats that they live in. To start this topic we went on a mini beast hunt, to look for the types of insects we might find in the habitats around school. We found lots of worms and woodlice, the children decided this was probably due to the recent wet weather. The children returned to the classroom and recorded where the insects were found and what that habitat was like.

Year 1 were lucky enough to have bikability training in the playground this term. The team brought a range of bikes with and without pedals. The children worked on their confidence of balancing and some children were confidently able to use a pedal bike by the end of their session. The children behaved fabulously and listened to all the instructions well.

To celebrate the end of our superhero topic and all the childrens' hard work, we organised a superhero day. The children and staff all dressed up as superheros. We wrote some amazing poems about our characters in the morning, then invited our adults in for the afternoon to complete some superhero crafts. We made capes, arm cuffs, masks and shields. The children loved sharing this experience with their adults and we think the adults enjoyed it too! Thank you to all the adults who came to share the afternoon with us and for all their help!

Year 1 performed as a class in the Spring Concert. The children each had an instrument and sung their song, 'A Sailor Went to Sea'. The children were amazing and enjoyed every minute of it. The concert saw every class performing and the whole school singing spring songs.

Miss Walker is getting married in the Easter holidays so the children wanted to throw a surprise celebration for her. The children each made a piece of bunting and a hat. They decorated a wedding dress in a style they thought Miss Walker would like and made a finger print tree for her. At the party, the children all took part in a quiz, then celebrated with a bun and a story... A Scarecrow's Wedding, very suitable!

This term we were lucky enough to have a coach from All Stars Cricket to teach us the basic rules of cricket. We practised throwing, catching, fielding and working as a team. The sessions finished with a world cup where the children got to practise their new skills in a competitive game.

As many of our adults are aware, we are having a BIG push in year 1 with our handwriting. We are working hard to get all the children to use leading lines and have introduced new handwriting books, which the children are all enjoying using and taking great pride in.

As part of our whole school healthy week, year 1 were lucky enough to enjoy a skipping lesson. We skipped using a large rope, as well as individual ropes. The children grew in confidence as the lesson went on and they left eager to practise their new skills more in the playground!

As part of our superhero topic, the children enjoyed designing and making their own moving pictures using sliders. The children designed their background, where the movement would be and how the superhero would move. They designed their background and their superhero. The pictures look really effective and the children enjoyed using them.

As part of our World Book Day learning, the children had the opportunity to work with our friends and performance poets, Colin and Julie. The children performed Supertato and pretended to be superheroes fighting crime. They loved acting out scenes from the story and we used this as a great starting point for our own Superhero comics.

As part of world book day, year 1 joined together with year 2 to find out all about Julia Donaldson. The children learnt facts about her life and her stories before completing their own quiz. After the children moved around the different spaces in keystage one to hear some of her most loved stories. The children in year 1 all made a wonderful effort with their costumes. Here are just a selection!!

The children have loved exploring the new role play area and playing with all the super hero figures. The children have especially enjoyed dressing up and taking photos of each other using the class ipad! Also Violet was kind enough to bring in some superhero books from home and read them to the class!

As part of our Superhero topic, we have been looking at the book Supertato. The children really enjoyed making their own vegetable and fruit superheros. We will use these to create our own superhero stories in literacy next week. The children enjoyed putting their characters into our 'superhero role play area' for their photo that will begin their stories.

To celebrate all the learning in year 1 so far this year, year 1 put together an amazing assembly. The children all learnt their lines to tell their adults from home and the rest of the school what has been happening in year 1 since September. The children have and continue to work hard and we are all incredibly proud of them.

Thank you for all your materials you sent in. It helped us complete an experiment to find which material would be best to make our space rockets waterproof. Our prediction of plastic was proven to be correct. We all agreed our rockets should have a plastic layer on the outside to protect it as it passes through clouds.

In maths this week we have been learning about shape. We looked at 2d and 3d shapes and talked about their different properties. We played a sorting game where we had to look closely at the properties of 3d shapes to see where on a Venn diagram they would belong. We also completed a shape hunt around our classroom to see what 3d shapes we could spot.

In art we have been learning about an artist called Peter Thorpe. He creates space pictures with a range of bright colours. He uses black paper and adds layers of colour to create his pieces. We really enjoyed using the oil pastels to mix colours together to create the effects of Peter.

We are learning about pitch in our lessons and we were all lucky enough to play a Ukulele. We were excited as they were all different colours, we didnt' know which colour we would get until we opened it. We learnt how to hold the Ukulele correctly and tried strumming the instruments to a song we knew.

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As part of our science topic on animals, the children were learning the terms omnivore, carnivore and herbivore. The children learnt which animals were meat eaters, which were the plant eaters and which animals ate both. The children began by looking at images of different animals with the food thay ate and sorting them into groups in pairs, before adding them to the class sorting chart. Afterward, the children were given the challenge of observing the contents of 'poo' from different animals. They needed to see if they could see vegetation remains, animal remains or both to decide if that animal was a herbivore, a carnivore or an omnivore. The children made predictions for each animal then investigated to see if their predictions were correct!

On Thursday 21st December, the children enjoyed their annual Christmas lunch. It was a lovely festive atmosphere and the children really enjoyed their food!

The children worked hard to learn the songs and put on a great performance for our key stage nativity. Year 1 children take a more supportive role, while the bigger parts go to year 2. The children did a great job and looked very smart in their costumes!

On Wednesday 19th December, year 1 celebrated with a class Christmas party. The children enjoyed games of pass the parcel and musical statues, and even had a visit from a very special guest! Thank you for all your food contributions - the children really enjoyed eating it all!

We have been learning stories again! This time it is Lost and Found by Oliver Jefferson. We drew a text map as a class and talked through the story in groups, as a class and in pairs. Then we were given the job of changing the main character and the location of the story. We are now writing our own versions of the story - all of which are amazing! Here we are learning the text map as a class.

As part of our science, we are looking at the seasons and how they change through the year. The children began by completing an autumn walk to see what they could find in the school grounds. They each tried to collect six items and drew what they found in their season books. We are already looking forward to our winter walk.

As a reward for getting to the top of the class treat board, the children chose to have a film afternoon in the pyjamas with popcorn and sweets. Some children brought teddies and blankets and snuggled while they watched Toy Story. It was a lovely chilled afternoon and a lovely time to share together after all their hard work.

In Geography year 1 have been using a range of maps to begin their learning of the 7 continents of the world.

On Friday 16th November the children helped to raise money for Children In Need by paying £1 to wear spots to school. The children looked amazing and they all made a terrific effort with their outfits! We were also lucky enough to be visited by Pudsey Bear himself! The children gave him a true class one welcome when he came into our classroom!

The children continued their learning about number bonds, this time focusing on numbers to 10. We used the weighted numicon to investigate which numbers would make 10 using the scales. The children recorded their findings in a way of their choosing - using part, part whole model, a tens frame or a number sentence.

In maths the children are learning about number bonds - the different ways you can make the same number. The children loved exploring using numicon and 5 frames to help them. They were experts in using the equipment and most children were confidently writing the number sentences to match their hands on investigations.

When learning about Bonfire Night, the children wrote descriptions of what they might see that evening, then they each created their own firework pictures using black paper and bright coloured chalks. Finally every child made their own chocolate lolly pop. They rolled their apple in melted chocolate and added sprinkles to the top to make sure it was utterly delicious! They were all very pleased with their creations.

Inspired by our class book, 'Stickman' the children each brought a stick into school to use to make their own stick creation. We looked at what happened to Stickman on his journey and what he was used as. We used this to inspire our designs, which we then brought to life! The children had a fabulous time sticking, cutting and ripping to create their own stick models.

Our science topic in year 1 is the 'Human Body' .The children have been learning all about the skeleton and body parts. The children had to draw around themselves and label all the parts they knew. They did extremely well and were very proud - as you can see in the photos. The children had a go at making their own skeleton from cotton buds - they were very accurate and lots of fun to make! Finally the children carried out an experiment comparing their hand size to their foot size. They used multi link cubes to measure and worked hard to make sure it was a fair test.

Year 1 spent the day exploring their senses. We began by identifying all five senses and which body part was responsible for which sense. After we split into groups to explore a sense. We found out our nose controls our sense of smell and smelt lots of smells we liked and others we didn’t. We were given the challenge of creating the smelliest sock we could from the ingredients provided – lavender, lemon, cheese and onion. Afterwards we learnt our eyes controlled our sight and played ‘Kim’s Game’ where we had to spot which object had been removed from a tray of items. We were very good at this. Then we explored our taste. We were blindfolded and had to taste a range of different foods. We learnt our taste buds help us taste and that they can identify sweet, sour and salty foods. We had to try to sort the foods we tasted into these categories. When exploring sound, we learnt that sound travels through the air and is picked up by our ears. We listened to a range of sounds and tried to identify what they were. We then voted for our favourite sound and collated the information in a pictogram. Finally we looked at touch. We lots of things to feel from shaving foam to treacle and from pine cones to sandpaper. We had a list of adjectives that could describe what we were feeling and we tried to explore how each item could be described.

To celebrate the end of our Elmer topic and our learning about difference, the children in year 1 had an Elmer Day. All the children dressed in colourful clothing and adults from home were invited in for the afternoon to complete craft activities with their children. Thank you to our amazing adults for all their support!

We are looking at self portraits in art and we have been studying different styles and techniques. This week we looked at Picasso and his cubism style. The children loved recreating their own Picasso influenced, cubist style, self portrait.

As part of our work on difference, linked to Black History, we have been looking at the story of Elmer. We learned how the patchwork elephant didn't always like being different. Together, we drew a story map and learnt to verbally retell the story. Next we will write our own Elmer stories, using all our phonic knowledge with good sentences, finger spaces and full stops!

To help us learn the 'greater than' less than' concept, we took our learning outside today. We used the natural resources found in our school environment to explore the maths. We even continued the game during our explore time and we took photographs of our own work.

We have had lots of fun already in our music classes this year. We have been learning about rhythm and beats with Mrs Rivers. We try to walk to the beat of the music and have even used scarves and a parachute to help with our learning. It is lots of fun!

Year 1 were lucky enough to have a visit from the 'Road Safety Team'. We had lots of interesting discussions around the dangers of the road, before going out and helping one of Amber cross the road. Our instructions were brilliant and we were even able to write these up back in the classroom.

When we returned in September, we had great fun exploring our new environment and getting to know our new teachers. We are all excited for the learning year ahead.