Sycamore Class
Welcome to Sycamore Class
Classteacher: Miss E. Kourlas
Summer Term Knowledge Organiser
Support documents for phonics, handwriting and spelling.
Friday 19th April 2024
We had a wonderful week back! Here are the highlights:
We talked lots about heights and lengths, and had a very memorable time measuring my height with cubes... apparently I am 100 cubes tall. This afternoon we went outside to look at the physical features of our school (see the photos below)!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Kourlas
Friday 27th March 2024
Today we finally had a chance to look at the ducklings and have a little investigation - we recorded how many cheeps each duckling made per minute! Bob had the most at 55 cheeps.
I believe that in this photo (see below) the duckling I am holding is Amy, who we named as a class! If you think our faces look very serious, that is because we were concentrating really hard on how many cheeps this little one made - we counted 35!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Kourlas
Tuesday March 26th 2024
Today was ROMAN DAY! All of Key Stage 1 had a fantastic time dressing up as either Romans, Boudica or anyone part of the Iceni Tribe. Below is a class photo of us all in our wonderful costumes. We completed many Boudica and Roman related activities - one of which was brought home today!
Miss Kourlas and Miss Brown
Friday 22nd March
Sycamore class was incredibly excited to see the ducklings that arrived in Key Stage 1 this week. Next week we will be conducting an investigation looking at five little ducklings, all who have hatched from their eggs. We also got to name one of the ducks, who we decided to call Amy!
Here is a photo of two of our new friends!
Miss Kourlas
Friday 8th of March, 2024
Everyone has been working very hard in maths this week! We have started learning about fractions, with a focus on halves, quarters and thirds. Perhaps the children can show what they know at home using their snacks!
We have also had fun learning more about frogs, which has to do with our new Big Reading theme "Fanatical about Frogs"! We have been learning about non-fiction texts, such as fact files. We are very excited to start learning how write one on our own fact files next week.
Miss Kourlas
Friday 19th January 2024
The children have been working hard this week and I have been impressed with how good they are now at counting in 10s! Please encourage your child to practise this with you at home too, including counting backwards!
We have created wonderul list poems about The Woodland this week in English and the children were able to use their senses to describe their settings too.
Miss Kourlas and Mrs. Brown
Friday 12th January 2024
The children have had a busy first week back and I have been getting to know all the children in Sycamore Class. We have enjoyed creating art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. We used natural materials to create the patterns we could see in our new text 'Think of an Eel'. The children have also read this book with a friend and created storyboards to help them become very familiar with the story.
In Maths we have been representing numbers up to 100 in a variety of ways and we all enjoyed learning actions to go with our new model text 'Journey to the Sargasso'.
Have a super weekend!
Miss Kourlas and Mrs. Brown
Week beginning 11th December
A massive well done to the whole of Sycamore class for their wonderful performances in our Nativity play this week!
We also had a lovely trip to the library on Thursday. We enjoyed reading and exploring some beautiful books and we found some new books related to our new topic for Spring term.
Merry Christmas and have a lovely break!
Week beginning 27th November
In English this week, we learned how to present and punctuate a poem. We then planned our own poem about pets, which we will finish writing next week.
In maths, we explored lines of symmetry and created repeated patterns with 2D shapes. We also worked hard to solve some tricky questions on our maths assessments.
We also performed an investigation in Science whilst testing materials. Do your grown-up's think 'crispies', 'marshmallows' or 'biscuits' helped the road be stronger?
Week beginning 20th November
We have continued our shape learning in maths this week. We have been counting the vertices and sides of 2D shapes and solving shape related problems.
We are now much more confident when using the Chromebooks in Computing lessons. This week we had to draw and fill different shapes to create a piece of digital art that looked similar to ‘The Snail’ by Henri Matisse.
In English, we have been exploring poems and we have learned a poem called ‘A bird is’. Next week we will continue working with this poem. Can you remember any of it at home?
Week beginning 6th November
In English this week, we have been focussing on our writing targets and planning a new diary entry written from the perspective of a kangaroo. We had to plan where they were bouncing to, where they had lunch and what they did in the afternoon. We also had to think about the kangaroo’s emotions and writing in first person.
In Science, we have started to learn about materials. We identified lots of objects around the classroom and what material they are made from. We also started to describe the properties of these materials. Can you identify any materials in your home?
Week beginning 30th October
In English this week, we started exploring diary entries. We looked at the features of diaries then learned a diary entry written by a swan.
In maths we have been consolidating our subtraction methods. Some of us took a number of objects away from a whole amount, some of us counted back on an empty number line and some of us partitioned numbers to take away the tens and ones separately. We also bought out new maths ‘KIRF’ home this week about number bonds to six.
In Science, we learned about the season ‘Autumn’ and created some beautiful autumnal art for our ‘Season’ display.
Week beginning 16th October
In English this week, we had a brilliant go at writing a Cinderella story independently. We worked hard to try and include clear, finger spaces, adjectives and punctuation.
In maths we have been continuing working on our addition and subtraction skills. We have been using number lines, objects, our fingers and counting on or back as methods. We also started to look at partitioning two-digit numbers to help us.
In Science, we performed a simple investigation using pepper and soap. Can you remember what happened to the pepper when the finger was covered in soap? This investigation helped us understand how important it is to use soap when washing our hands.
This afternoon we made a trip to the library to collect some beautiful new books for our classroom.
Have a great half term!
Revolting Pizza making
Week beginning 9th October
In English this week, we have started to innovate the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ text that we learned last week with our new ideas about Jack from ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
In maths we have been subtracting. We have been counting backwards in our heads, on number lines and taking away objects from an amount to solve subtractions. We have also used part-part-whole models to represent this.
In D.T. this week we made ‘Revolting Pizzas’! We carefully followed our designs from last week to create and evaluate our ‘Revolting Pizzas’ made with biscuit bases.
Week beginning 2nd October
In English this week we have been identifying and using adjectives, verbs and similes. We learned that adjectives describes nouns (an object, place or person), verbs are words used for actions or movements and similes describe something as something else. We made some wonderfully creative similes to describe the height of trees and the roundness of someone’s eyes.
In maths we have been adding. We now understand that adding is combining two amounts or values together. We have used part-part-whole diagrams and box models to represent how addition can be done in any order.
In Science we have continued learning about healthy eating and organising food into the five main food groups. We have discussed how the best way to get everything we need from food is to eat a varied and balanced diet.
Week beginning 25th September
Well done Sycamore class! We are incredibly proud of the independent writing you have done today after a week of learning the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ story. You all worked incredibly hard to include story language and extra details as well as working on your writing targets.
We have also been comparing numbers in maths this week and we started to use the ‘more than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equals’ signs as well as the language.
In Computing this week, we logged on to the Chromebooks and developed our mouse skills by drawing pictures on ‘paintz.app’. We had lots of fun changing the colours and using the different tools.
Beginning of Autumn 1
Well done to everyone in Sycamore class for a wonderful start to the year. We have been working hard to get used to our new routines and we have jumped straight into our learning.
In phonics we have been revisiting lots of the phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs we learned in Reception. We have then blended them in words to read and segmented them for spelling. We have also been reading and spelling ‘tricky’ words.
In English we have been learning about instructions. We learned that instructions include a title, introduction, ‘what you need’ list, numbered steps, time openers and imperative/bossy verbs. We then tried to use these features when writing our own instructions about dressing the Big Bad Wolf as a Grandma and helping someone get ready for a ball.
In maths we have been learning about numbers and place value. We have been counting forwards and backwards, ordering numbers, finding one more and one less and partitioning numbers up to 20. We have been using lots of different resources to help us represent the value of numbers and understand what they are made of.
We have been very lucky this week as we have been testing some different foods in class. We tried and tested possible pizza bases in D.T. and explored our senses in Science when tasting different fruits.
We have also made some beautiful artwork for our classroom. We have been using oil pastels, chalks and paint to create different textures and effects. We hope you like them when you come to visit our classroom.