St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Blackhall
Coast Road, Blackhall Colliery, Hartlepool TS27 4HE
This week our text is ‘Let’s Build a House’
This non-fiction books gives us information about lots of different houses and the materials used to make them. This week is the Big Garden Birdwatch so we began to think about how we could make a house for a bird. Reception made a list of all the resources that we might need.
This afternoon we used the lists to collect the different resources.
To be continued…
Today we applied our knowledge of shape to a game. Miss Coxon zoned off an area of the classroom, the children were very curious about what was going on. Miss Coxon explained that the floor in that area was lava and we could only cross by stepping on the correct shapes.
In teams the children were assigned a shape and they could only use that shape to cross the lava. All teams were successful.
Miss Coxon gave descriptions of the shapes that we could step on, “A shape with 4 sides that are the same size, then a shape with 3 corners.” Again the children successfully crossed the lava.
The children had lots of fun and they were able to talk about the features of the 2D shapes in the lava.
We are learning about how to keep our teeth healthy. The children talked about going to the dentist and that sparked an idea.
We created our own dental surgery.
As the children explored the area they acted out scenarios and had lots of fun, but they were actually developing skills such as;
Using talk to organise their play.
“Hello St.Joseph’s Dental Surgery, do you need an appointment?”
“Well done, you can choose a sticker.”
Playing together and elaborating on the ideas of others.
“Let’s look at the x-rays.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know lets ask someone else.”
“Yes, it’s a cavity. She needs to come to the dentist.”
“I have 3 appointments today.”
“This is my list.”
“Your check is all done.”
Working together to take on the different roles within the scenario, the children then drew upon their own experiences to recreate a visit to the dentist.
Miss Coxon had been shopping at the weekend and needed some help to carry her heavy bag.
Reception were happy to help and they all had a go at lifting the bag. They were curious as to what was inside.
We emptied the bag to see why it was so heavy, we all got the chance to hold each of the items. We then put them in order from heaviest to lightest.
The next day we decided to test how heavy the items were, together they decided to see if they had to use one hand or two to hold it. When they tested and agreed they recorded their results on the board.
Miss Coxon introduced the scales and showed the children how they worked, they very quickly were able to say the heaviest object was the lowest side of the scales. We tested some of our blocks and made predictions about their weight.
“I think it will be heavier.”
Koby
Then Miss Coxon challenged reception to find objects that were heavier and lighter than her block and pan, they accepted this challenge with excitement and were very successful.
What a fantastic day!
Today we visited Beamish Museum to see Father Christmas. The children were excited as they approached the grotto. 
We then headed to the town where we visited the different shops and had lunch.
We took a short tram ride to the pit village and visited the Victorian school. The children spotted lots of differences compared to our school.
It really helped get us in the Christmas spirit.
When the children arrived this morning they were keen to talk about the snow. Following their interests we went outside to explore.
“It’s cold,” Harriet said.
We used our fine motor skills to make marks in the snow.
After holding some snow in their hand, one of the children noticed that it was getting smaller. “It’s melting,” said Koby. We then experimented with different methods to melt the ice.
Harriet noticed that if she rubbed her hands together with the ice in the middle it melted quicker.
Using utensils they rescued leaves that were encased in ice.
In Class 1 we use lots of kind words.
With the help of Year 6 we led a liturgical prayer based around ‘one kind word.’ The children were respectful throughout and shared a kind word with others in school.
Mr Baker was very impressed with how well we worked together to make shelters using natural resources. Well done Class 1.
