Welcome to Hazel !
2024 - 2025
Mrs Hodgetts/Mrs Lewin - Class Teachers
Mrs Whitlock/Mrs Winyard/Mrs Amvrosiadis/Mrs Spencer/Miss Gregory - Teaching Assistants
Summer 2
Enchanted Woodland
This half term, we have been exploring the work of Andy Goldsworthy. We found out that he uses natural resources and objects to create pictures, then observes the changes over time. In groups, we gathered our own natural resources and worked together to make large art pieces in Goldsworthy's style by using different textures, circles and arches. We then left them over the weekend to see how they changed. Afterwards, we put the natural objects back into our outdoor environment, just like Goldsworthy does. Don't they look fantastic!
What a way put a smile on the children's faces! (And the adults!) As you can tell, we were all very happy!
Well done Hazel 1 for your fantastic class assembly. We enjoyed hearing about all the exciting learning that you have done so far this year. What a busy year it has been!
Today, we explored the school grounds to spot and name different types of common trees. We examined the leaves carefully and used our 'Leaf ID' sheet to help us identify which tree each leaf came from.
Imagine our surprise when we came across a strange note in the middle of our phoneme cards. 'If you go down to the woods today you’ll be sure of a big surprise!' After finishing our phonics lesson, we put on our coats and went to investigate.
Summer 1
Rio de Vida
Well done Hazel 1! Super effort completing this morning’s sponsored walk/run.
In the last week before half term, our class got busy in the kitchen making a delicious roasted pasta salad. We practised safe cutting skills using the bridge and claw techniques to chop our vegetables, then added garlic and oil before roasting them in the oven. While they cooked, we boiled the pasta and let it cool. Once everything was ready, we mixed the roasted vegetables with the pasta, added a little mayonnaise and pesto, and gave it a good stir. Everyone tried the final dish — and there wasn’t a plate left with food on it! A tasty end to the half term and a great chance to build our cooking confidence.
We have been ordering numbers to 100. We then ordered them from biggest to smallest and gradually increased the numbers we represented and ordered. We were even able to compare and order them without the dienes, too.
The children started drawing their art using a variety of shapes. We then used primary colours to start with and mixed these to create secondary colours. We are all so proud of the artwork created!
Year 1 thoroughly enjoyed their school trip this week to The National Adventure Farm.
We met lots of animals, had a tractor ride and lots of play. The children were such a credit to our school and were very tired by the end!
The children have been having a fun with Winning With Numbers and showing off how great they are at it! They've been so excited about it that we thought, “Why not invite the face of Winning With Numbers to come and see what our students have been up to?” And that’s exactly what we did – and it was a lot of fun!
Today Year 1 have been looking at the primary colours and then mixing them to create secondary colours. The children will use these colours to paint their own versions of ‘Castle and Sun’ by Paul Klee’s this week.
Spring 2
Monarchs
Today we enjoyed a visit from Charlie, a local firefighter. We learned about his job and saw what he had to wear to protect himself in a fire. We then learned about keeping safe in our home. Finally we practised ‘Stop, drop and roll’ to help us stay safe if there ever was a fire.
We have been measuring using standard units of measure. We began by finding items in our classroom that were taller, longer and shorter than a metre. As a challenge we then found things that were taller, longer and shorter than half a metre. Finally we found objects that were taller, longer and shorter than a quarter of a metre.
In Geography we have been looking at the four countries that make up the United Kingdom (UK). We were introduced to an atlas and looked through it so see what it was about! We then labelled and coloured the countries of the United Kingdom referring to the atlas.
We have been learning about doubling and halving in Maths and today we have used the Cuisenaire rods to investigate this.
Today we created a route for turtle to follow to get to Anansi’s house for dinner. After going outside to practice our routes, we then directed our partners to program the route using a Bee-Bot.
An algorithm is a set of steps or actions needed to solve a problem or complete a task. The steps in an algorithm need to be in the right order. With our partners, we created a course on the floor. We had to follow the algorithm that our partners gave us to get from the start of the course to the finish. The instructions had to be clear and we had to use our star words. If the algorithm was correct, our partners successfully completed the course. If we were not clear or precise, we had to debug to correct errors!
We started our Computing lesson by singing the Hokey Cokey. We discussed how this was an algorithm as we had to follow clear and precise instructions. After practising the song, we used some pictures to represent the different actions. Together we put these in the correct order to create a ‘Hokey Cokey algorithm’.
We have been learning about halves and to investigate making halves, we have used a piece of bread to see how many ways we can get two equal sized pieces.
In English, we have been reading the ‘Smartest Giant in Town’ by Julia Donaldson. To remember the important parts of the story, we have been using our ‘talk for writing’ skills. This will help us rewrite our own versions next week.
We have been using the make 10 strategy to find the difference between two numbers.
Year 3 came to read with us this afternoon for World Book Day. We loved having the older children hear our new reading skills! We were also very lucky to have one of our governors, Mrs Michel, read us a story. What a brilliant day!!
To celebrate World Book Day, we dressed up as favourite book characters. We even got to experience some DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read) which gave us lots of opportunities to read for pleasure.
In computing we discussed where we use algorithms in everyday life. Although we don’t call them algorithms, we use them all of the time when cooking, for example when following a recipe. Our adults may regularly following ‘route algorithms’ on phones and sat-navs too. We then used a path puzzler app to investigate route algorithms We had to work together to get the ‘most precise’ route. We drew arrows on a whiteboard to show the different ways of getting, for example, the brown dog to the brown bone. We also had to ‘debug’ some of our routes, as the paths could not cross!
Spring 1
No Place Like Home
To support our work in Geography this half term focusing on geographical skills and fieldwork, while walking to Polesworth Library to watch 'The Snowflake' a show put on by the Birmingham Rep, we followed our route on a map, identifying key features within the local area. While there, we created a dance to reflect the seasons and made snowflakes to join in with the show!
Having listened to the story of Anansi and the Turtle, we used parts of the story to count how many 'more', how many 'fewer' and the 'difference'.
Music
Tuned Percussion
After creating our own pattern of E-D-C notes, we practised playing them on the instrument alongside singing a line from the chant.
Today we worked in small groups to identify and name a variety of animals. We sorted them based on their characteristics, we then discussed this together and grouped the animals. We were then introduced to the scientific vocabulary for the different animal groups and classified the animals into the correct category using our knowledge of each animal.
Today, we have used role play to retell the story of The Enormous Turnip. We thought about how the characters would be feeling throughout the story and we all agreed that the characters would be feeling exhausted trying to pull up an enormous turnip! However, in the end they were pleased that they could all share a turnip supper!
This week we have used a drum to tap out the syllables in our names. We have also been learning a football echo song and we have been using instruments to tap along to the beat!
We have been refreshing our knowledge of telling the time at o clock and half past the hour!
Autumn 2
School Days
Christmas dinner was very tasty! We even had a festive singsong at the same time!
Hazel class would like to say a huge thank you to Team Birchwood for our wonderful winter books. We have enjoyed spending time looking at them and sharing them with our friends.
It’s panto time! 'Oh, no it isn’t!'
'Oh, yes it is!' We had a great time watching the pantomime this afternoon.
We used a range of colours and mixed paint and cornflower to have a go at the impasto technique in the style of Vincent Van Gogh.
Here are Hazel 1 making some paperchains to order the months of the year.
In DT we explored the journey of wheat from seed to harvest, learning how it is made into flour and then into bread. Using the skills of measuring, mixing and kneading we then made a dough. After leaving it to rise we shaped the pitta breads and put them into the oven to cook. Finally we chose a filling and enjoyed eating the final product.
Autumn 1
Everyday Materials
The children enjoyed their last forest school session which saw them learning some new sawing skills as well as lighting a fire safely.
We have been learning to repeat shapes and patterns, we learned the 'Hokey Cokey' and have also had a go at the 'Cha Cha Slide' dance which has helped us to follow the leader’s movements, and to know how to change direction!
We have been exploring the difference between fiction and non fiction texts.
We have been comparing and grouping together a variety of everyday materials on the basis of their simple physical properties.
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More Forest School fun exploring the woodland.
We have been looking at materials in Science and sorting them using a Venn diagram into metals and plastics.
We have been exploring the story of “The Three Little Pigs” by retelling it through freeze frames.
This was our very first Year 1 Forest School session. We played a game of trust with our partners using blindfolds and then we learned the first skill of carving using a peeler and a stick.
