Welcome to Hughes Class.

Mrs Cross and Mrs Halloran

In DT the children have learnt all about windmills and made their own wonderful windmills. 

Thank you to Father Alf for visiting Hughes Class. The children had a very interesting time and took the opportunity to ask Father Alf lots of interesting questions…they now know that his favourite breakfast is bacon and eggs! The children enjoyed sharing their favourite bible stories with Father Alf.

Can we grow cress in a plastic bag?

In science we have set up an experiment, by putting wet cotton wool and cress seeds in a small, transparent plastic bag. We then stuck the bags in the classroom window. Some of us predict that the cress will grow because the seeds have water, sunlight and carbon dioxide. Some of us predict that the cress will not grow because there is no soil in the bag for the roots to take nutrients from. We are excited to see what will happen.

Mrs Cross brought her sons 1 week old Chinese painted button quails into school. They were so tiny! We were all very gentle with them.

We enjoyed some well deserved ‘golden time’. We were very excited to play with some of the ‘new’ toys that used to belong to Mrs Cross’ little girl.

To celebrate the sun shining we enjoyed a picnic lunch outside. Thank you to Mrs Ashworth and Mrs Ward, this was such a treat and we loved it.

Maths this week has been very practical, lots of fun and all about positional language. We used our knowledge of fractions (halves and quarters) to describe turns and then added in words such as left, right, forwards, backwards, above and below. We tried to direct our friends to different parts of the playground using these words. We have also started to learn ordinal numbers, we secured our understanding of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc by having lots of fun races.

Mrs Halloran and I are so incredibly proud of all the children this week. On Thursday and Friday they did their Phonics Screening Check and I have no doubt that they all tried their absolute best. The children have worked so hard on their phonics this year and it has really started to pay off. As a treat we enjoyed yummy chocolate biscuits, whilst designing our house for a mouse in design technology and listening to music. Year 1 you are all superstars! 

Thank you to Mrs Squires who joined us for our PE session this week. We enjoyed a brilliant PE lesson, did lots of running and had lots of fun.

In maths we have started to learn about position and direction. We have been able to use our existing knowledge of halves and quarters to help us.

Thank you to Mrs Wright who visited our class this week to share a religious story with us. We all sat and listened whilst Mrs Wright told us the story of Noah and the ark, using beautiful wooden props. The fantastic listening and behaviour of the children was commented on by Mrs Wright… well done Hughes Class!

Not only have had so much fun with our class ducklings, but we have also learnt a lot too. Mary, Frappe, Little Dude and Chloe have loved all the attention they have been given.

In maths we have been learning about fractions. We now know all about halves and quarters of objects, shapes and quantities. Super work Hughes class!

In PE we have been working on our underarm throws and athletics. 

In English we have been developed our own superhero. We have thought about what they would look like and what their special powers would be. We thought about what questions we would like to ask a superhero and learnt how to use a question mark instead of a full stop. Here are some of the questions that some of us constructed on our Mighty Writer board. We have also learnt about using exclamation marks. This week we will be creating our own comic strip, complete with our very own superhero. The children have some very imaginative ideas and I can’t wait to share their finished work with you all.

In maths we have continued to work on our multiplication skills and understanding. We have learnt how to count in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, we can confidently identify equal groups and we can independently complete repeat additions (2+2+2+2 =8) to find a total of equal groups.

The children have been working very hard in maths. They have been starting to learn about multiplication. To do this we have been thinking about counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s and finding totals using repeated additions. The children have shown great understanding. 

Mrs Halloran and I were incredibly proud of the whole class today when they performed a loud and cheery song for the rest of the school during assembly. The children have all worked so hard to learn the words and actions to ‘spring chicken’ and they were absolutely fantastic.

In English we have started thinking about stories with fantasy themes. We particularly love superhero stories, so we have had lots of fun being superheroes this week. 

The eggs are in the incubator. We have carefully helped Mrs C ‘turn’ the eggs regularly. Mrs Cross has explained to us that the eggs might be ‘empty’. We don’t know yet, but we are really hoping that there will be a chick inside some of the eggs. 

Look at our 3d paper pictures. We absolutely loved making these.

Have a look at our Earth Day activities. Thank you to all the grown ups who sent materials into school with their children.

In Art we have started to learn about sculptures. This week we rolled colourful paper to create our very own paper sculptures. Watch this space for the finished product!

In Geography we have been thinking about human and physical features of our local area. We will then compare the area we live in to an area in China. This week ‘Tom’ has been on a journey across Lancashire to find some human and physical features. The children were a very good help to Tom and could quickly identify human features that have been built by humans and physical features which have been created by nature.

Having lots of fun playing games.

We have started to investigate volume and capacity with some yucky green water!

In maths we have all had so much fun investigating mass and using scales in maths.

Thank you to all our grown ups and little siblings who joined us for our Easter afternoon. The children had a wonderful time planting seeds. 

Sometimes Mrs C can be a bit silly! This week we have been learning about instructions. Mrs C pretended to be an alien and we needed to tell her how to brush her teeth. We learnt that when writing instructions they need to be bossy, clear and in the correct order.

Thank you to everyone who came along to our reading afternoon. The children all had a wonderful time.

In Science we have been learning about different animals. We can now identify key features of mammals, reptiles, birds and amphibians. We have also learnt about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. We now know that carnivores eat meat, herbivores eat plants and omnivores eat plants and meat. We also know that human beings are omnivores. We were able to make animal poo (don’t worry it was just salt dough), we added seeds, grass and leaves to the herbivore poo, pretend bones (spaghetti) to the carnivore poo and seeds, leaves and seeds to the omnivore poo. 

In English we have started to look at traditional rhymes. We have sung lots of nursery rhymes together, performed our favourite rhymes as a pair and even had the chance to experience some traditional rhymes for ourselves. We had the opportunity to fix Miss Polly’s dolly, make currant buns for the bakers shop, create beautiful gardens for Mary, Mary quite contrary, relax under the twinkle, twinkle little stars, take five little ducks swimming and pretend we are 5 speckled frogs jumping into the pool. 

On Monday Mrs B organised a treat for the whole school. She arranged for a yoga instructor to give each class a relaxing yoga session. 

This week in history we have started thinking about toys from the past. We have all been playing with some toys that children would have played with many years ago. Hughes Class had so much fun and even started to recognise how much toys have changed. 

When we return to school after the February half term break we will be in the Christian season of lent. During Lent the children will be involved in some activities to develop their understanding of the season in preparation for Easter. Please see the letter attached below for more information.

This week we have celebrated Mental Health Week. We have thought about what we can do if we are feeling worried or scared, we have discussed how we can be kind and make a huge difference to how our friends might feel. We understand that we are all very different but that we are all a very special piece of Hughes Class.  
 

We all worked very hard drawing our self portraits so that we could create this beautiful display in celebration of Mental Health Week 2024. Here is a picture of all our hard work. 

Hughes Class had a fantastic time on ‘French Day’. They enjoyed a variety of French themed activities all around school and even tried some French food. They all looked fabulous in their red, white and blue clothes. 🇫🇷 

We learnt the French words for some of our body parts with the year 3 teacher Miss Evan’s. We even learnt a French song. We hope you enjoy it!

Just look at some of the yummy food we were able to enjoy. Some of the foods we could try included croissants, crepes, fromage, jambon and pan au chocolat.

In PSHE we discussed ‘good’ and ‘bad’ touches. The children were able work in pairs and show Mrs C through role play and by pretending different good and bad touches. 

A few examples of our wonderful art work. We have been learning about different colours and today we explored printing and used different Lego and Duplo blocks to create these fabulous patterns.

Some more pictures from our exciting speed stacking sessions with Coach Matty from Fleetwood Town FC. We have all really enjoyed these sessions. Thanks Coach Matty!

Today we were very lucky to meet lots of different creepy crawlies. The children were all very excited and brave and some of them even had a picture taken with a snake around their shoulders. Unfortunately, Mrs Cross has left her Ipad at work, but she will upload all of the pictures onto the class page as soon as she can on Monday.

We have been very interested in creepy crawlies recently. At playtime we found some tiny snails playing inside our tyres.
 

A huge well done to Rosie and Matthew who won the new ‘Headteachers Award’ for being fantastic home readers. 

In Hughes Class we have been working hard to form our numbers correctly. We have used cotton buds, paint and play doh. 

PSHE

In PSHE we have been thinking about different feelings such as sadness and happiness. We have thought about how our faces might look depending on how we feel. 

Working hard in Maths. We have been comparing numbers by using the signs for greater than, less than and equal to. We have done this by pretending we are ‘Charlie Crocodile’. Charlie is a greedy crocodile so he will only eat the biggest numbers.

In English as part of our poetry unit we have looked at adjectives. Our poems are all about animals so the children have thought of lots of adjectives that can describe animals. Today we built some sentences using the adjectives we suggested.

On Friday some of our year 1 children enjoyed an outdoor PE session with some of the year 3 children. The year 3’s were fantastic and really helped the younger children.

We were very lucky to be visited by the PSHE ‘Life Bus’, we got to meet Harold the giraffe and learnt lots of interesting facts about our amazing bodies.

We had our final session of Healthy Heads this week. Thank you to Coach Rob for helping us think about kindness and how we can make a difference to the lives of other people just by being kind. We enjoyed a warm up game where we had to follow Coach Rob’s instructions and pretend to be all types of beans. In the pictures where we are lying down, we are pretending to be baked beans on a slice of toast!

It was lovely to see some of our wonderful year 1’s enjoying the disco last night. Here are some pictures of all the fun.

We have been using our Mighty Writer board and working very hard on writing our sentences this week. Here is some of our wonderful work.

This is an example of a sentence we built together on the Mighty Writer. The children love using this resource. Perhaps you could ask your child what this sentence is.

In science we have been continuing to think about our senses. This week we looked at the sense of touch. We felt lots of different objects and tried to use interesting words to describe how each one felt. Some of the children independently rubbed the objects on their faces and we realised that we can touch and feel things with our skin and not just our hands.

In computing we have managed to log in to Purple Mash on our own. We loved creating our very own avatars. Maybe you could ask your child what an avatar is.

In maths we have started to think about how number lines can help us to find more than or less than a number.

Thank you to Mrs Kowalska for reading us a lovely story about friendship.

In Hughes class we are working so hard on our fine motor skills. On a Friday afternoon we have the opportunity to choose from different activities. The activities are organised in a carousel and the children have the chance to engage with all of the different activities set up. These activities are all designed to strengthen our fine motor skills. This helps us with our handwriting and forming of numbers. Here are some of the exciting things we did before the half term holiday. 

In Hughes class we really enjoy telling our friends about our special treasures from home. Here are some pictures of the children with their show and tell items. Mrs Cross and Mrs Halloran have been very impressed with the children’s confidence when telling their friends about their treasures. Well done Hughes class!

This week we have discussed our memories and what memories are. We have also thought about Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies. The children listened to the Flanders Field poem and understand that we wear our poppies to help us remember all of the men and women who have sadly died during wars and whilst protecting our country. We have looked at some different ways we can remember members of the armed forces who have died in battle such as laying wreaths, visiting cenotaphs, attending special services and observing a 2 minutes silence on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. We even listened to a soldier play the Last Post. The children produced some beautiful drawings of ways we can remember the dead. 

We are extremely lucky to have started yoga with Wendy. During our first session the school hall was very quiet, the children looked incredibly relaxed and showed just how flexible they are. Well done Hughes Class!

Christmas Jumper Day

Hughes Class had so much fun showing off their Christmas jumpers. They also enjoyed their yummy Christmas dinner and lots of dancing to Christmas songs.

Lancashire Library Visit
 

Hughes Class enjoyed a visit from Caroline from Lancashire Library. Caroline was kind enough to share her favourite Christmas stories with us. The children loved discussing their favourite stories with Caroline.

Children of the World Christmas Performance

We are so proud of all the children for delivering a truly amazing Christmas performance. They have all worked so hard to learn the songs and actions. 

Christmas Pantomime

The children all enjoyed the pantomime. There was lots of shouting, cheering, booing and laughing. It made us all feel especially Christmassy.

Computing
 

The children have been working very hard in their computing lessons. The have been using their mathematical skills to think about the grouping of objects. They have then been using Purple Mash on the iPad's to group different shapes and colours.

Our fun Christmas party with a visit from Santa himself! There were lots of games and loads of interesting dancing. 

As is our tradition we were visited by the Christmas donkeys. We were all excited to have a ride…even if it was freezing! 

We have been thinking about different materials. We found lots of different materials around our classroom and carried out an experiment to see if the objects would sink or float in water. Whilst investigating we wondered what would happen to cotton wool, so Mrs Cross showed us. Now we know that cotton wool will float until it absorbs water and becomes heavier. When this happens the cotton wool will sink.